The Girl on the Train: A Novel

FRIDAY, JULY 12, 2013

MORNING

I am exhausted, my head thick with sleep. When I drink, I hardly sleep at all. I pass out cold for an hour or two, then I wake, sick with fear, sick with myself. If I have a day when I don’t drink, that night I fall into the heaviest of slumbers, a deep unconsciousness, and in the morning I cannot wake properly, I cannot shake sleep, it stays with me for hours, sometimes all day long.

There is just a handful of people in my carriage today, none in my immediate vicinity. There is no one watching me, so I lean my head against the window and close my eyes.

The screech of the train’s brakes wakes me. We’re at the signal. At this time of morning, at this time of year, the sun shines directly onto the back of the trackside houses, flooding them with light. I can almost feel it, the warmth of that morning sunshine on my face and arms as I sit at the breakfast table, Tom opposite me, my bare feet resting on top of his because they’re always so much warmer than mine, my eyes cast down at the newspaper. I can feel him smiling at me, the blush spreading from my chest to my neck, the way it always did when he looked at me a certain way.

I blink hard and Tom’s gone. We’re still at the signal. I can see Jess in her garden, and behind her a man walking out of the house. He’s carrying something—mugs of coffee, perhaps—and I look at him and realize that it isn’t Jason. This man is taller, slender, darker. He’s a family friend; he’s her brother or Jason’s brother. He bends down, placing the mugs on the metal table on their patio. He’s a cousin from Australia, staying for a couple of weeks; he’s Jason’s oldest friend, best man at their wedding. Jess walks towards him, she puts her hands around his waist and she kisses him, long and deep. The train moves.

I can’t believe it. I snatch air into my lungs and realize that I’ve been holding my breath. Why would she do that? Jason loves her, I can see it, they’re happy. I can’t believe she would do that to him, he doesn’t deserve that. I feel a real sense of disappointment, I feel as though I have been cheated on. A familiar ache fills my chest. I have felt this way before. On a larger scale, to a more intense degree, of course, but I remember the quality of the pain. You don’t forget it.

I found out the way everyone seems to find out these days: an electronic slip. Sometimes it’s a text or a voice mail message; in my case it was an email, the modern-day lipstick on the collar. It was an accident, really, I wasn’t snooping. I wasn’t supposed to go near Tom’s computer, because he was worried I would delete something important by mistake, or click on something I shouldn’t and let in a virus or a Trojan or something. “Technology’s not really your strong point, is it, Rach?” he said after the time I managed to delete all the contacts in his email address book by mistake. So I wasn’t supposed to touch it. But I was actually doing a good thing, I was trying to make amends for being a bit miserable and difficult, I was planning a special fourth-anniversary getaway, a trip to remind us how we used to be. I wanted it to be a surprise, so I had to check his work schedule secretly, I had to look.

I wasn’t snooping, I wasn’t trying to catch him out or anything, I knew better than that. I didn’t want to be one of those awful suspicious wives who go through their husband’s pockets. Once, I answered his phone when he was in the shower and he got quite upset and accused me of not trusting him. I felt awful because he seemed so hurt.

I needed to look at his work schedule, and he’d left his laptop on, because he’d run out late for a meeting. It was the perfect opportunity, so I had a look at his calendar, noted down some dates. When I closed down the browser window with his calendar in it, there was his email account, logged in, laid bare. There was a message at the top from [email protected]. I clicked. XXXXX. That was it, just a line of Xs. I thought it was spam at first, until I realized that they were kisses.

It was a reply to a message he’d sent a few hours before, just after seven, when I was still slumbering in our bed.

I fell asleep last night thinking of you, I was dreaming about kissing your mouth, your breasts, the inside of your thighs. I woke this morning with my head full of you, desperate to touch you. Don’t expect me to be sane, I can’t be, not with you.

I read through his messages: there were dozens, hidden in a folder entitled “Admin.” I discovered that her name was Anna Boyd, and that my husband was in love with her. He told her so, often. He told her that he’d never felt like this before, that he couldn’t wait to be with her, that it wouldn’t be long until they could be together.

I don’t have words to describe what I felt that day, but now, sitting on the train, I am furious, nails digging into my palms, tears stinging my eyes. I feel a flash of intense anger. I feel as though something has been taken away from me. How could she? How could Jess do this? What is wrong with her? Look at the life they have, look at how beautiful it is! I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts. Who was it said that following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all. Hatred floods me. If I saw that woman now, if I saw Jess, I would spit in her face. I would scratch her eyes out.

EVENING

There’s been a problem on the line. The 5:56 fast train to Stoke has been cancelled, so its passengers have invaded my train and it’s standing room only in the carriage. I, fortunately, have a seat, but by the aisle, not next to the window, and there are bodies pressed against my shoulder, my knee, invading my space. I have an urge to push back, to get up and shove. The heat has been building all day, closing in on me, I feel as though I’m breathing through a mask. Every single window has been opened and yet, even while we’re moving, the carriage feels airless, a locked metal box. I cannot get enough oxygen into my lungs. I feel sick. I can’t stop replaying the scene in the coffee shop this morning, I can’t stop feeling as though I’m still there, I can’t stop seeing the looks on their faces.

I blame Jess. I was obsessing this morning about Jess and Jason, about what she’d done and how he would feel, about the confrontation they would have when he found out and when his world, like mine, was ripped apart. I was walking around in a daze, not concentrating on where I was going. Without thinking, I went into the coffee shop that everyone from Huntingdon Whitely uses. I was through the door before I saw them, and by the time I did it was too late to turn back; they were looking at me, eyes widening for a fraction of a second before they remembered to fix smiles on their faces. Martin Miles with Sasha and Harriet, a triumvirate of awkwardness, beckoning, waving me over.

“Rachel!” Martin said, arms outstretched, pulling me into a hug. I wasn’t expecting it, my hands were caught between us, fumbling against his body. Sasha and Harriet smiled, gave me tentative air-kisses, trying not to get too close. “What are you doing here?”

For a long, long moment, I went blank. I looked at the floor, I could feel myself colouring and, realizing it was making it worse, I gave a false laugh and said, “Interview. Interview.”

“Oh.” Martin failed to hide his surprise, while Sasha and Harriet nodded and smiled. “Who’s that with?”

I couldn’t remember the name of a single public relations firm. Not one. I couldn’t think of a property company, either, let alone one that might realistically be hiring. I just stood there, rubbing my lower lip with my forefinger, shaking my head, and eventually Martin said, “Top secret, is it? Some firms are weird like that, aren’t they? Don’t want you saying anything until the contracts are signed and it’s all official.” It was bullshit and he knew it, he did it to save me and nobody bought it, but everyone pretended they did and nodded along. Harriet and Sasha were looking over my shoulder at the door, they were embarrassed for me, they wanted a way out.

“I’d better go and order my coffee,” I said. “Don’t want to be late.”

Martin put his hand on my forearm and said, “It’s great to see you, Rachel.” His pity was almost palpable. I’d never realized, not until the last year or two of my life, how shaming it is to be pitied.

The plan had been to go to Holborn Library on Theobalds Road, but I couldn’t face it, so I went to Regent’s Park instead. I walked to the very far end, next to the zoo. I sat down in the shade beneath a sycamore tree, thinking of the unfilled hours ahead, replaying the conversation in the coffee shop, remembering the look on Martin’s face when he said good-bye to me.

I must have been there for less than half an hour when my mobile rang. It was Tom again, calling from the home phone. I tried to picture him, working at his laptop in our sunny kitchen, but the image was spoilt by encroachments from his new life. She would be there somewhere, in the background, making tea or feeding the little girl, her shadow falling over him. I let the call go to voice mail. I put the phone back into my bag and tried to ignore it. I didn’t want to hear any more, not today; today was already awful enough and it was not yet ten thirty in the morning. I held out for about three minutes before I retrieved the phone and dialled into voice mail. I braced myself for the agony of hearing his voice—the voice that used to speak to me with laughter and light and now is used only to admonish or console or pity—but it wasn’t him.

“Rachel, it’s Anna.” I hung up.

I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t stop my brain from racing or my skin from itching, so I got to my feet and walked to the corner shop on Titchfield Street and bought four gin and tonics in cans, then went back to my spot in the park. I opened the first one and drank it as fast as I could, and then opened the second. I turned my back to the path so that I couldn’t see the runners and the mothers with buggies and the tourists, and if I couldn’t see them, I could pretend like a child that they couldn’t see me. I called my voice mail again.

“Rachel, it’s Anna.” Long pause. “I need to talk to you about the phone calls.” Another long pause—she’s talking to me and doing something else, multitasking, the way busy wives and mothers do, tidying up, loading the washing machine. “Look, I know you’re having a tough time,” she says, as though she has nothing to do with my pain, “but you can’t call us at night all the time.” Her tone is clipped, irritable. “It’s bad enough that you wake us when you call, but you wake Evie, too, and that’s just not acceptable. We’re struggling to get her to sleep through at the moment.” We’re struggling to get her to sleep through. We. Us. Our little family. With our problems and our routines. Fucking bitch. She’s a cuckoo, laying her egg in my nest. She has taken everything from me. She has taken everything and now she calls me to tell me that my distress is inconvenient for her?

I finish the second can and make a start on the third. The blissful rush of alcohol hitting my bloodstream lasts only a few minutes, and then I feel sick. I’m going too fast, even for me, I need to slow down; if I don’t slow down something bad is going to happen. I’m going to do something I will regret. I’m going to call her back, I’m going to tell her I don’t care about her and I don’t care about her family and I don’t care if her child never gets a good night’s sleep for the rest of its life. I’m going to tell her that the line he used with her—don’t expect me to be sane—he used it with me, too, when we were first together; he wrote it in a letter to me, declaring his undying passion. It’s not even his line: he stole it from Henry Miller. Everything she has is secondhand. I want to know how that makes her feel. I want to call her back and ask her, What does it feel like, Anna, to live in my house, surrounded by the furniture I bought, to sleep in the bed that I shared with him for years, to feed your child at the kitchen table he fucked me on?

I still find it extraordinary that they chose to stay there, in that house, in my house. I couldn’t believe it when he told me. I loved that house. I was the one who insisted we buy it, despite its location. I liked being down there on the tracks, I liked watching the trains go by, I enjoyed the sound of them, not the scream of an inner-city express but the old-fashioned trundling of ancient rolling stock. Tom told me, “It won’t always be like this, they’ll eventually upgrade the line and then it will be fast trains screaming past,” but I couldn’t believe it would ever actually happen. I would have stayed there, I would have bought him out if I’d had the money. I didn’t, though, and we couldn’t find a buyer at a decent price when we divorced, so instead he said he’d buy me out and stay on until he got the right price for it. But he never found the right buyer, instead he moved her in, and she loved the house like I did, and they decided to stay. She must be very secure in herself, I suppose, in them, for it not to bother her, to walk where another woman has walked before. She obviously doesn’t think of me as a threat. I think about Ted Hughes, moving Assia Wevill into the home he’d shared with Plath, of her wearing Sylvia’s clothes, brushing her hair with the same brush. I want to ring Anna up and remind her that Assia ended up with her head in the oven, just like Sylvia did.

I must have fallen asleep, the gin and the hot sun lulling me. I woke with a start, scrabbling around desperately for my handbag. It was still there. My skin was prickling, I was alive with ants, they were in my hair and on my neck and chest and I leaped to my feet, clawing them away. Two teenage boys, kicking a football back and forth twenty yards away, stopped to watch, bent double with laughter.

The train stops. We are almost opposite Jess and Jason’s house, but I can’t see across the carriage and the tracks, there are too many people in the way. I wonder whether they are there, whether he knows, whether he’s left, or whether he’s still living a life he’s yet to discover is a lie.

SATURDAY, JULY 13, 2013

MORNING

I know without looking at a clock that it is somewhere between seven forty-five and eight fifteen. I know from the quality of the light, from the sounds of the street outside my window, from the sound of Cathy vacuuming the hallway right outside my room. Cathy gets up early to clean the house every Saturday, no matter what. It could be her birthday, it could be the morning of the Rapture—Cathy will get up early on Saturday to clean. She says it’s cathartic, it sets her up for a good weekend, and because she cleans the house aerobically, it means she doesn’t have to go to the gym.

It doesn’t really bother me, this early-morning vacuuming, because I wouldn’t be asleep anyway. I cannot sleep in the mornings; I cannot snooze peacefully until midday. I wake abruptly, my breath jagged and heart racing, my mouth stale, and I know immediately that’s it. I’m awake. The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be. I lie there, listening to the sound of Cathy’s urgent, cheerful busyness, and I think about the clothes on the side of the railway line and about Jess kissing her lover in the morning sunshine.

The day stretches out in front of me, not a minute of it filled.

I could go to the farmer’s market on the Broad; I could buy venison and pancetta and spend the day cooking.

I could sit on the sofa with a cup of tea and Saturday Kitchen on TV.

I could go to the gym.

I could rewrite my CV.

I could wait for Cathy to leave the house, go to the off-licence and buy two bottles of sauvignon blanc.

In another life, I woke early, too, the sound of the 8:04 rumbling past; I opened my eyes and listened to the rain against the window. I felt him behind me, sleepy, warm, hard. Afterwards, he went to get the papers and I made scrambled eggs, we sat in the kitchen drinking tea, we went to the pub for a late lunch, we fell asleep, tangled up together in front of the TV. I imagine it’s different for him now, no lazy Saturday sex or scrambled eggs, instead a different sort of joy, a little girl tucked up between him and his wife, babbling away. She’ll be just learning to talk now, all “Dada” and “Mama” and a secret language incomprehensible to anyone but a parent.

The pain is solid and heavy, it sits in the middle of my chest. I cannot wait for Cathy to leave the house.

EVENING

I am going to see Jason.

I spent all day in my bedroom, waiting for Cathy to go out so that I could have a drink. She didn’t. She sat steadfast and unmovable in the living room, “just catching up on a bit of admin.” By late afternoon I couldn’t stand the confinement or the boredom any longer, so I told her I was going out for a walk. I went to the Wheatsheaf, the big, anonymous pub just off High Street, and I drank three large glasses of wine. I had two shots of Jack Daniel’s. Then I walked to the station, bought a couple of cans of gin and tonic and got onto the train.

I am going to see Jason.

I’m not going to visit him, I’m not going to turn up at his house and knock on the door. Nothing like that. Nothing crazy. I just want to go past the house, roll by on the train. I’ve nothing else to do, and I don’t feel like going home. I just want to see him. I want to see them.

This isn’t a good idea. I know it’s not a good idea.

But what harm can it do?

I’ll go to Euston, I’ll turn around, I’ll come back. (I like trains, and what’s wrong with that? Trains are wonderful.)

Before, when I was still myself, I used to dream of taking romantic train journeys with Tom. (The Bergen Line for our fifth anniversary, the Blue Train for his fortieth.)

Hang on, we’re going to pass them now.

The light is bright, but I can’t see all that well. (Vision doubling. Close one eye. Better.)

There they are! Is that him? They’re standing on the terrace. Aren’t they? Is that Jason? Is that Jess?

I want to be closer, I can’t see. I want to be closer to them.

I’m not going to Euston. I’m going to get off at Witney. (I shouldn’t get off at Witney, it’s too dangerous, what if Tom or Anna sees me?)

I’m going to get off at Witney.

This is not a good idea.

This is a very bad idea.

There’s a man on the opposite side of the train, sandy blond hair veering towards ginger. He’s smiling at me. I want to say something to him, but the words keep evaporating, vanishing off my tongue before I have the chance to say them. I can taste them, but I can’t tell if they are sweet or sour.

Is he smiling at me, or is he sneering? I can’t tell.

SUNDAY, JULY 14, 2013

MORNING

My heartbeat feels as though it is in the base of my throat, uncomfortable and loud. My mouth is dry, it hurts to swallow. I roll onto my side, my face turned to the window. The curtains are drawn, but what light there is hurts my eyes. I bring my hand up to my face; I press my fingers against my eyelids, trying to rub away the ache. My fingernails are filthy.

Something is wrong. For a second, I feel as though I’m falling, as though the bed has disappeared from beneath my body. Last night. Something happened. The breath comes sharply into my lungs and I sit up, too quickly, heart racing, head throbbing.

I wait for the memory to come. Sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes it’s there in front of my eyes in seconds. Sometimes it doesn’t come at all.

Something happened, something bad. There was an argument. Voices were raised. Fists? I don’t know, I don’t remember. I went to the pub, I got onto the train, I was at the station, I was on the street. Blenheim Road. I went to Blenheim Road.

It comes over me like a wave: black dread.

Something happened, I know it did. I can’t picture it, but I can feel it. The inside of my mouth hurts, as though I’ve bitten my cheek, there’s a metallic tang of blood on my tongue. I feel nauseated, dizzy. I run my hands through my hair, over my scalp. I flinch. There’s a lump, painful and tender, on the right side of my head. My hair is matted with blood.

I stumbled, that’s it. On the stairs at Witney station. Did I hit my head? I remember being on the train, but after that there is a gulf of blackness, a void. I’m breathing deeply, trying to slow my heart rate, to quell the panic rising in my chest. Think. What did I do? I went to the pub, I got on the train. There was a man there—I remember now, reddish hair. He smiled at me. I think he talked to me, but I can’t remember what he said. There’s something more to him, more to the memory of him, but I can’t reach it, can’t find it in the black.

I’m frightened, but I’m not sure what I’m afraid of, which just exacerbates the fear. I don’t even know whether there’s anything to be frightened of. I look around the room. My phone is not on the bedside table. My handbag is not on the floor, it’s not hanging over the back of the chair where I usually leave it. I must have had it, though, because I’m in the house, which means I have my keys.

I get out of bed. I’m naked. I catch sight of myself in the full-length mirror on the wardrobe. My hands are trembling. Mascara is smeared over my cheekbones, and I have a cut on my lower lip. There are bruises on my legs. I feel sick. I sit back down on the bed and put my head between my knees, waiting for the wave of nausea to pass. I get to my feet, grab my dressing gown and open the bedroom door just a crack. The flat is quiet. For some reason I am certain Cathy isn’t here. Did she tell me that she was staying at Damien’s? I feel as though she did, though I can’t remember when. Before I went out? Or did I speak to her later? I walk as quietly as I can out into the hallway. I can see that Cathy’s bedroom door is open. I peer into her room. Her bed is made. It’s possible she has already got up and made it, but I don’t think she stayed here last night, which is a source of some relief. If she isn’t here, she didn’t see or hear me come in last night, which means that she doesn’t know how bad I was. This shouldn’t matter, but it does: the sense of shame I feel about an incident is proportionate not just to the gravity of the situation, but also to the number of people who witnessed it.

At the top of the stairs I feel dizzy again and grip the banister tightly. It is one of my great fears (along with bleeding into my belly when my liver finally packs up) that I will fall down the stairs and break my neck. Thinking about this makes me feel ill again. I want to lie down, but I need to find my bag, check my phone. I at least need to know that I haven’t lost my credit cards, I need to know who I called and when. My handbag has been dumped in the hallway, just inside the front door. My jeans and underwear sit next to it in a crumpled pile; I can smell the urine from the bottom of the stairs. I grab my bag to look for my phone—it’s in there, thank God, along with a bunch of scrunched-up twenties and a bloodstained Kleenex. The nausea comes over me again, stronger this time; I can taste the bile in the back of my throat and I run, but I don’t make it to the bathroom, I vomit on the carpet halfway up the stairs.

I have to lie down. If I don’t lie down, I’m going to pass out, I’m going to fall. I’ll clean up later.

Upstairs, I plug in my phone and lie down on the bed. I raise my limbs, gently, gingerly, to inspect them. There are bruises on my legs, above the knees, standard drink-related stuff, the sort of bruises you get from walking into things. My upper arms bear more worrying marks, dark, oval impressions that look like fingerprints. This is not necessarily sinister, I have had them before, usually from when I’ve fallen and someone has helped me up. The crack on my head feels bad, but it could be from something as innocuous as getting into a car. I might have taken a taxi home.

I pick up my phone. There are two messages. The first is from Cathy, received just after five, asking where I’ve got to. She’s going to Damien’s for the night, she’ll see me tomorrow. She hopes I’m not drinking on my own. The second is from Tom, received at ten fifteen. I almost drop the phone in fright as I hear his voice; he’s shouting.

“Jesus Christ, Rachel, what the hell is wrong with you? I have had enough of this, all right? I’ve just spent the best part of an hour driving around looking for you. You’ve really frightened Anna, you know that? She thought you were going to . . . she thought . . . It’s all I could do to get her not to ring the police. Leave us alone. Stop calling me, stop hanging around, just leave us alone. I don’t want to speak to you. Do you understand me? I don’t want to speak to you, I don’t want to see you, I don’t want you anywhere near my family. You can ruin your own life if you want to, but you’re not ruining mine. Not anymore. I’m not going to protect you any longer, understand? Just stay away from us.”

I don’t know what I’ve done. What did I do? Between five o’clock and ten fifteen, what was I doing? Why was Tom looking for me? What did I do to Anna? I pull the duvet over my head, close my eyes tightly. I imagine myself going to the house, walking along the little pathway between their garden and the neighbour’s garden, climbing over the fence. I think about sliding open the glass doors, stealthily creeping into the kitchen. Anna’s sitting at the table. I grab her from behind, I wind my hand into her long blond hair, I jerk her head backwards, I pull her to the floor and I smash her head against the cool blue tiles.

EVENING

Someone is shouting. From the angle of the light streaming in through my bedroom window I can tell I have been sleeping a long time; it must be late afternoon, early evening. My head hurts. There’s blood on my pillow. I can hear someone yelling downstairs.

“I do not believe this! For God’s sake! Rachel! RACHEL!”

I fell asleep. Oh Jesus, and I didn’t clear up the vomit on the stairs. And my clothes in the hallway. Oh God, oh God.

I pull on a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt. Cathy is standing right outside my bedroom door when I open it. She looks horrified when she sees me.

“What on earth happened to you?” she says, then raises her hand. “Actually, Rachel, I’m sorry, but I just don’t want to know. I cannot have this in my house. I cannot have . . .” She tails off, but she’s looking back down the hall, towards the stairs.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so sorry, I was just really ill and I meant to clear it up—”

“You weren’t ill, were you? You were drunk. You were hungover. I’m sorry, Rachel. I just can’t have this. I cannot live like this. You have to go, OK? I’ll give you four weeks to find somewhere else, but then you have to go.” She turns around and walks towards her bedroom. “And for the love of God, will you clean up that mess?” She slams her bedroom door behind her.

After I’ve finished cleaning up, I go back to my room. Cathy’s bedroom door is still closed, but I can feel her quiet rage radiating through it. I can’t blame her. I’d be furious if I came home to piss-soaked knickers and a puddle of vomit on the stairs. I sit down on the bed and flip open my laptop, log in to my email account and start to compose a note to my mother. I think, finally, the time has come. I have to ask her for help. If I moved home, I wouldn’t be able to go on like this, I would have to change, I would have to get better. I can’t think of the words, though, I can’t think of a way to explain this to her. I can picture her face as she reads my plea for help, the sour disappointment, the exasperation. I can almost hear her sigh.

My phone beeps. There’s a message on it, received hours ago. It’s Tom again. I don’t want to hear what he has to say, but I have to, I can’t ignore him. My heartbeat quickens as I dial into my voice mail, bracing myself for the worst.

“Rachel, will you phone me back?” He doesn’t sound so angry any longer, and my heartbeat slows a little. “I want to make sure you got home all right. You were in some state last night.” A long, heartfelt sigh. “Look. I’m sorry that I yelled last night, that things got a bit . . . overheated. I do feel sorry for you, Rachel, I really do, but this has just got to stop.”

I play the message a second time, listening to the kindness in his voice, and the tears come. It’s a long time before I stop crying, before I’m able to compose a text message to him saying I’m very sorry, I’m at home now. I can’t say anything else because I don’t know what exactly it is I’m sorry for. I don’t know what I did to Anna, how I frightened her. I don’t honestly care that much, but I do care about making Tom unhappy. After everything he’s been through, he deserves to be happy. I will never begrudge him happiness—I only wish it could be with me.

I lie down on the bed and crawl under the duvet. I want to know what happened; I wish I knew what I had to be sorry for. I try desperately to make sense of an elusive fragment of memory. I feel certain that I was in an argument, or that I witnessed an argument. Was that with Anna? My fingers go to the wound on my head, to the cut on my lip. I can almost see it, I can almost hear the words, but it shifts away from me again. I just can’t get a handle on it. Every time I think I’m about to seize the moment, it drifts back into the shadow, just beyond my reach.